A: I'd been intrigued with gold dredging since I lived in Breckenridge, Colorado, in the early 1960s.  (Middle Swan, the book's setting, is based on Breckenridge, which was a gold mining town long before it because a ski area.) Since then I'd toyed with the idea of writing about those treacherous gold boats on the streams near Breckenridge and the people who had a love-hate relationship with them.  I'd also wanted to write a collection of stories about Colorado, told by a quilter, similar to the classic Aunt Jane of Kentucky , written by Eliza Calvert Hall a hundred years ago.  But I'd never considered combining the two ideas until I read a Civil War story about a baby who died while his mother was detained by soldiers.  I was so moved by the story that I began thinking about how I could incorporate it into a novel.  That was when I realized I could make it the departure point of a novel combining the brutality of gold dredging with the comfort of quilting.

Q: When you write a novel, do you begin with the plot or the characters?  Or the setting?

A: I almost always start with the setting.  The characters come next.  Then the characters and I go looking for a plot.

Q: What sort of research did you do for Prayers for Sale? 

A: I'd already done some of the research when I wrote my 10 nonfiction books, most of them on Colorado history.  When I lived in Breckenridge, I talked to the old men who had worked on the dredges and heard their stories.  But Prayers for Sale took additional research, of course.  I researched gold dredging and read 1930s accounts of life in the mountains.  And I studied the books and notes of two old women, novelist Helen Rich and poet Belle Turnbull, who had taken me under their wing when I lived in the mountains.  In fact, in my Breckenridge file, I have a letter from Helen in which she told me she was glad I was going to write about Breckenridge.  She wrote, "You've really got the bug about doing Breckenridge.  I feel quite sure about you and you have the grace to grow... As you have found out the stuff out of which such books are made has to steep into a person."  She wrote the letter in 1967.

Q: Quilting plays an important role in many of your novels, including this one.  Why? 

A: Quilting defines a woman --- the type of stitches she takes, the colors she picks for her quilt tops, the pattern she chooses. And quilting, especially in an isolated town such as Middle Swan, brings women together.  Sharing their secrets, they bond over the quilt frame.

Q: Why did you choose to have such an age difference between the two heroines in this novel --- Hennie and Nit?

A: Hennie had to be a Civil War survivor for her story to work.  I wanted to incorporate characters from my other books into the story --- Zepha Massie from The Persian Pickle Club, Tom Earley from The Diary of Mattie Spenser, Ned and Emma from The Chili Queen.  The only way this worked was to set the story in 1936 when Hennie was a very old woman. Because she was so vulnerable, Nit had to be young, barely more than a girl.

Q: What do you feel are some of the most important themes in this novel?

A: Friendship, human dignity, survival, forgiveness, redemption.

Q: Would you name some other books you've enjoyed recently? 

A: I'd like to say I've just curled up with War and Peace, but in fact the books I've read recently include:

Going Together by Arnold Grossman, This Republic of Suffering by Drew Gilpin Faust, Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott, The March by E.L. Doctorow, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards, and various short stories by Truman Capote. 

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